Disclaimer: While aspirants might have come here reading the tag ‘Tips for Civil Services Examination’, I must candidly declare that there are actually no objective tips for this examination as such. I believe that every successful candidate has his/her own style of studying depending upon his/her background, strengths and weaknesses. However a proper guidance always helps and it is my endeavour in this blog to share my experiences and both what I did and what I think should be or should not be done.
Prelims is
a non-evaluative examination of qualifying nature. It consists of two objective
question type papers of 200 marks each; passing which makes the candidate
eligible to run the real race, i.e. write Mains examination. Prelims is a
‘nothing to gain, but everything to lose’ type of examination because while
clearing it hardly means any big achievement in terms of the final result, but
failing in it means a massive backlash, both in terms of time as well as
morale. While it is meant to shunt non-serious candidates and hence serious
candidates do easily clear it, but over-confidence can bring the doom.
Therefore one must never take prelims lightly.
Recently it
is being observed that the cutoff for prelims is rising steeply even though the
total number of candidates qualifying is also increasing. In 2011 the cutoff
was 198, in 2012 it increased to 209 and in 2013 it sharply rose to 241 for
General category. So one can never attempt enough questions to just cross the
tentative cut-off as who knows the cutoff may rise higher. The questions asked
are also not like any other multiple choice questions in which one can easily
eliminate some very obvious options and take an easy guess for the right answer,
as choices consist of various answers and candidate may have to select out of
options like (1) only 1 is correct (2) only 1 and 3 are correct (3) only 1, 3
and 4 are correct (4) all are correct etc. So a thorough knowledge is required
as partial knowledge may not do any good.
But the
respite is that apart from the traditional questions on polity, history,
culture etc. some very general common sense questions are being asked under the
headers General issues on
environmental ecology, bio-diversity and climate change and General Science that do not require any subject
specialisation. So if one has her concepts cleared during the school days and
has good general awareness, it is not hard to score on those questions. Then
Paper 2 or the most discussed CSAT paper has become the key to clear prelims. While it requires great effort to score above
100 marks in paper 1, it becomes absolutely necessary to score at least 150
marks out of 200 in CSAT. In my humble opinion it is not a difficult feat and
can be achieved by good practice for speed and accuracy (at least I can vouch
for people with mathematics background).
There are
really no strategies as such for prelims paper 1 because it does not require
much skill to recognize the correct choice out of given four except knowledge
and hence studying sincerely and exhaustively is the only way to score well in
prelims. Following are the sources I recommend for
Paper 1
- Current Events: Current affairs do not need as much emphasis for prelims as for mains. Nevertheless every civil services aspirant must make reading newspaper a habit which would suffice for prelims. But government schemes and initiatives should be covered nicely from Economic Survey and newspaper.
- History of India and Indian national movement: The focus should be primarily on modern history, i.e. ascent of British rule and struggle for independence. For this the old NCERT of class XII by Bipan Chandra is a must read. Apart from that I found spectrum publications’ book on Modern India a great book. The only trick is to read it word by word again and again with special focus on the various Acts – 1773, 1793, 1813, 1833, 1853, 1858, 1861, 1892, 1909, 1919 and 1935. For ancient and medieval India, a cursory reading of old NCERTs should suffice with special focus on culture of various eras, Indus Valley Civilization and Buddhism and Jainism.
- Indian culture: CCRT website, or GK today notes
- Indian polity: Polity by lakshmikanth is the source. D.D. Basu and a copy of constitution ad verbatim for reference.
- Geography: NCERT books of class XI – Fundamentals of Physical Geography and Indian Physical Environment. Apart from these I also referred to Wizard publication book on Indian Geography.
- Economics: I used Vajiram notes and ALS class notes and printed notes for this part. Book on Indian Economy by Wizard publications is also useful (else any other good book on Indian economy like Uma Kapila, Datt Sundaram etc.). One must also give a reading to that year’s Economic Survey.
- Environment and Ecology: A good book has come up in market by Erach Barucha. It can cover various basics related to Ecology. However one has to remain updated on International summits and national international action plans on climate change. For that any good coaching notes can be referred to. Mrunal website and ESI are also useful.
- General Science: While for basics one can rely on school education, ICSE books of science till class X can be read by those who don’t feel confident. For current developments, Mrunal, newspaper, and any monthly periodical like chronicle or wizard can be referred to. I also read printed notes by ALS.
For CSAT or Paper 2
I
did not study anything specifically for this paper. I had appeared and
qualified for NTSE in class X and had studied TMH books for mental ability
then. This preparation stayed with me for this exam also. However for those who
require extra preparation, standard CAT preparation material available in
market should do just fine. I practiced test papers of Career Launcher and some
other coaching institutes for one month before the exam to get into the
required mode. Speed and accuracy has to be developed. Writing test papers in
exam conditions also helps to recognize weak areas which can then be worked
out. I scored 194 out of 200 marks in Paper 2 using this work-plan.
